


Hibiscus

by Porkchop_Sandwiches



Category: Breaking Bad
Genre: Fuck Walt, Gen, Skyler's Day Off, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-06
Updated: 2018-01-06
Packaged: 2019-03-01 09:26:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13291923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Porkchop_Sandwiches/pseuds/Porkchop_Sandwiches
Summary: She needed a cigarette. And a glass of wine. A cupcake would have been nice too.As her breath leveled out, she riffled through the newspaper clippings in the passenger seat in hopes of finding the coupon she’d saved from Sunday morning’s paper that she swore she wouldn’t use. Because fuck it, she wanted a damn cupcake.Skyler gets some fun solo time away from Walt in season 2, episode 4: "Down."





	Hibiscus

**Author's Note:**

  * For [What_we_are](https://archiveofourown.org/users/What_we_are/gifts).



> This prompt was for something about what Skyler does all day when she doesn't tell Walt where she's been in season 2, episode 4: "Down."

“How far along are you?”

“Oh, just a couple pages,” Skyler said.

It wasn’t until she was looking at the man with the mustache and sweater-vest standing a little too close to her computer chair in the Cherry Hills Library that she realized how out of it she was. She’d been writing for the better part of an hour, so long that looking at anything other than her monitor felt like a sort of shock to her system, an intrusion almost. He clearly wasn’t asking about her short story. _His_ eyes certainly weren’t on her computer.

She closed her white cardigan a little tighter over her chest and smiled politely. “Almost six months.”

“Boy or girl?”

He stuck his palm—dry-feeling even through her t-shirt—directly over her belly button. It was enraging. She wasn’t in the mood to talk, let alone be touched like she was some sort of public object, like her body was a bench at a bus stop.

“I’m having a girl.”

He smiled. “Feels more like a little lad to me. Me and the misses have two already and a third on the way.”

God, this guy looked like he was in his late fifties. She wondered how young his wife was. He had a slight British accent, which somehow made this encounter all the more frustrating. Weren’t the British supposed to be demure and polite? She was fairly sure that at least one of Gretchen Schwartz’s parents was English.

Skyler subtly turned her torso towards her keyboard, smile still intact. “Ultrasounds say otherwise. I’m sorry, but I have some work I need to get back to.”

“No worries,” he said. “Cheers.”

He tipped his head, finally got his hand off her stomach, and walked in the direction of the biographies with a newspaper folded under his arm. She massaged the nape of her neck and gave the room an accusatory glare. Not one of the other women had stepped in for her, even offered an understanding sort of glance, nothing. Granted there were only two other people here—both elderly and reading magazines—but she guessed that wasn’t too out of the ordinary with it being a weekday. Most everyone else was working except for her. And Walt.

Skyler shook her head. No, she wasn’t thinking about Walt.

However, that was hard for the strangest of reasons: the walls were yellow. Not just any yellow but egg-yolk yellow. And egg yolks only reminded her of Walt’s desperate breakfasts from yesterday and this morning. He’d made omelets today. She’d taken a hard passed though, giving him a tight smile and absolutely no specifics about her day. A day she was taking for herself. Because she wasn’t thinking about Walt or his second cell phone. She wasn’t thinking about what she was going to make for dinner or her cold ankles in this frigid A/C or of any of the errands she should be running.

Taking a deep inhale through her nose, she tried imagining the smell of hyacinths and coconuts and suntan lotion. She briefly shut her eyes before refocusing on her opened Word document.

Holland Flynn, a thirty-something paralegal was attending a work conference in Honolulu where she strikes up a connection with a blond man on a boat who helps her find her own identity. Making a face, she deleted her third use of the word “destiny” and reassured herself that this was absolute garbage. It was, honestly, and it wasn’t all that insulting. Skyler had a warmup technique where she’d write something light and fluffy and romantic-comedy-like, something Marie would watch and claim was “absolute drivel, Skyler. But Jennifer Aniston is aging _so_ well,” something that was publishable. Usually that only lasted a few paragraphs. Today it was more like over three thousand words.

Something about honing in all of her attention on the description of a late afternoon on the beach was particularly enthralling and therapeutic: the kind of _crunch-swoosh_ of the waves, soft though gritty sand clinging to the back of Holland’s left calf, a string of hibiscus flowers around her neck. Skyler could certainly use a vacation, maybe even one outside the States.

Fiddling with her own necklace, Skyler let her fingers settle against her sternum when she got a familiar wave of heartburn. Skipping breakfast had left her simultaneously nauseous and hungry. But above all else, she desperately needed to pee. Holly was wedged right against her bladder.

She glanced around the room before grabbing her beaded satchel and high-tailing it to the first floor restroom. The walls were just as yellow. It reeked of lemon Pine-Sol and they were out of paper towels.

Drying her hands on her maternity jeans, she stepped out to see that a man in a tweed coat had taken her seat. And despite how silly her story was, she had grown a little attached to it. But retrieving it would mean confronting him, and she didn’t have it in her today, to confront anyone really.

She fished her keys from her purse and made her way to the automatic glass doors. It wasn’t worth it.

\---

After sitting in the Jeep for a solid five minutes debating if she should go home or to Albertsons for Flynn’s cereal and to replace the eggs they were now out of, she remembered an ad in the paper for thirty percent off of women’s professional-wear at Kohl’s. She would need a blouse and blazer and a skirt for her interview at Beneke’s, preferably in a size that would encompass her new, swollen stomach. She hadn’t gone clothes shopping for herself in almost a year. Most of what she was wearing she’d saved from her pregnancy with Flynn back when she'd quit her job to start a family. When she’d eagerly wait in the afternoons for Walt to come home from work with a lasagna or baked chicken waiting for him as well. She’d yet to decided what to make for dinner.

The closest Kohl’s was half an hour away.

It took her only twenty minutes with the roads mostly clear though that didn’t help much. This location had moved. The building was boarded up, fliers for silk slippers and sleep masks strewn across the sidewalk.

Skyler gently ran her fingers across her lips and considered having a cigarette.

She needed some fresh air is all.

Slinging her purse over her shoulder, she decided to check out a strip of shops where she could make out a local bookstore and maybe some sort of electronic repair place. It was a lot warmer that it had been this morning, almost too much so for her cardigan. She wasn’t sure if she was having another hot flash but the breeze was refreshing and she swore she could smell cinnamon buns up ahead. Passing a barbershop with a clump of men playing cards inside, she caught her reflection in a large darkened window and noticed her hair was in a bit of a mess. She combed it lazily with her fingers and realized she was in front of a tattoo parlor.

William’s Ink Emporium was etched into the glass to the left side of the door with kind of a white sheen to the lettering. A poster advertised an array of high quality titanium and eighteen karat gold body jewelry. Cupping her stomach, Skyler remembered that brief period freshman year of college when she’d had a belly button piercing, before they’d really come into vogue actually. She’d hidden it from her parents, Marie too of course. And while she liked the look of a simple white gold barbell in her navel in the two-piece she’d worn on a few beach trips with friends out to the gulf, she’d let it close up after a few months when the back fell off in the shower.

She almost missed it now, having something so small yet oddly defiant. Almost laughing out loud, she couldn’t imagine how…ridiculous it would look on her with her body the way it was.

“Interested in getting some ink?”

Skyler jumped. She clasped a hand over her chest. There was a man, probably in his early thirties, standing next to her, one hand carrying a set of keys and the other a large green and white Styrofoam cup from Del Taco. He was blond, lean, wearing a dark emerald tank top and an uncertain smile.

“I’m sorry, I was just admiring….” Skyler swallowed as her eyes followed the blue and red feather tattoo encompassing his entire right bicep and even peeking at her from around his collarbone. She wondered how far down it went. “…You’re shop. It looks…looks quite professional. I really…love your _ink_ , by the way. Does it…have…some sort of significance?”

God, what was she saying? Was she really playing with her hair? She willed her hand to hang by her side.

“Well thank you,” he said, sipping from his drink. He nodded to his arm. “My mum, Robin, was in the Australian air force. She had breast cancer when I was just an ankle bitter. Passed when I was eight.”

He tugged at the neck of his shirt to reveal that the feather morphed into a small robin on his _very_ defined pec. The back of her neck was warm and it was honestly ridiculous how turned on she was when his nipple stiffened a little.

“You’re Australian.”

Once she was using her brain for anything more than ogling him, his thick Australian accent was more than obvious, as was her senseless question.

“Not usually before noon, but I try,” he said. He took another pull from his straw and maybe noticed the flush on her cheeks. “It’s pretty hot out. Can I offer you a water? Maybe a place to sit for a while? If you weren’t wearing a wedding ring, I’d offer my phone number.”

Skyler laughed. She laughed like she was fourteen years old with her hand demurely covering her mouth.

“Oh no, no I’m fine. I’m actually having a coffee-date with a friend in the bakery down the block. But it was nice to meet you. I’m Skyler, by the way.”

She reached her arm out.

“William, but my mates call me Billy.”

He had to wedge his drink in the crook of his arm to shake her hand, and his palm was cold from being wrapped around his soda.

Back in the front seat of her Jeep, Skyler’s own palm was warm as she slid it between her legs. God it really didn’t take much these days to get her all hot and bothered. Licking her lips, she rubbed herself a few times through her jeans before giving up any semblance of modesty and simply ramming her hand down her pants; a task that was much more difficult than it should have been because of her stomach, but most certainly worth it.

She was slick against her fingertips. She pictured Billy eating her out on his knees. She wanted to fuck him.

In the thick, mind-numbing heat of her fantasy, she imagined herself shoving his sinewy body against the hardwood floors of his shop and riding him. She hadn’t had sex on top since around the beginning of her second trimester because Walt insisted the angle wasn’t good for the baby; more like it wasn’t good for his lower back. Though she would argue the angle was definitely good for her clitoris. And Billy would like her on top of him. It didn’t matter that in reality she’d most definitely break his skinny pelvis in half with a move like that. No, because in her mind, he’d moan out her name in his sexy accent, hold her by the hips and fuck up into her as she licked his tattoo and sink her teeth into his shoulder. She’d pin his hands down at some point, confidentially smile down at him and—

“ _Oh_.”

Her orgasm was heady and tingly, actually gave her a chill down both legs even though she was hot inside her car. And the second it was over and her hand was back on the wheel it took everything in her not to dwell too much on how she’d just masturbated in the parking lot of an abandoned Kohl’s.

She _needed_ a cigarette. And a glass of wine. A cupcake would have been nice too.

As her breath leveled out, she riffled through the newspaper clippings in the passenger seat in hopes of finding the coupon she’d saved from Sunday morning’s paper that she swore she wouldn’t use. Because fuck it, she wanted a damn cupcake.

Sweet Bees, a bakery that had just opened the previous weekend, was a forty-five-minute drive away. The owner was a former Haitian refugee who’d been cooking since was practically old enough to walk. Skyler couldn’t remember her name but she’d decorated the shop beautifully. Everything was a very pleasant pale yellow, made everything feel warm and honey-like, like a bee hive, like baby Holly’s nursery.

The place was completely empty at such an odd hour for that kind of thing and she was happy not to have to wait in line. She ordered the day’s specialty flavor despite knowing that even with her ten-percent-off coupon she could easily buy half a dozen cupcakes at Albertsons for the same price as one here. Well, probably not a double fudge chocolate cupcake with lavender hibiscus frosting that honestly looked like a work of art.

And to Skyler’s surprise, her scrumptious masterpiece was sitting next to another in the box the woman in the magenta apron slid across the glass counter to her.  

The woman smiled wide. “One for the baby.”

“Thank you,” Skyler side, grinning back.

“Have a good day.”

The woman’s Haitian accent was as thick as the delicious frosting Skyler had in her mouth before she’d even left the bakery. She’d shamelessly devoured every morsel of the first cupcake by the time she was sitting in her car. The second she’d intended to save for Flynn.

But then she was staring at Walt’s car in the driveway, thinking about how he would ask what she'd been up to today the second she walked inside, how he’d give her that pathetic smile of his.

Glaring at his bumper, she peeled off the wrapper from the bottom of her second cupcake and savored it slowly in tiny bites. This one had extra fudge chunks near the top of the cake portion just below the frosting, which was so thick and rich it made the molar she should probably get checked out sting just a little.

She wiped her mouth with a napkin and wadded everything in a tight ball before shoving it inside her purse. With her underwear not exactly fresh and clean, her belly full, and her system feeling almost a little hungover from her sugar overload, she certainly could use a shower.

A hot shower sounded nice, soothing, a legitimate way to avoid Walt. She locked the Jeep and stepped up the driveway; hot shower it was.

 

 


End file.
